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POPSWho Are We? Coming of Age on Antidepressants The reason has to do with the way drugs are tested and approved. To get F.D.A. approval, a drug has to beat a placebo in two randomized clinical trials that typically involve a few hundred subjects who are treated for relatively short periods, usually 4 to 12 weeks.So drugs are approved based on short-term studies for what turns out to be long-term — often lifelong — use in the world of clinical practice. What do I say to a depressed patient who is doing well after five years on such a drug but can’t stop without a depressive relapse and who wants reassurance that the drug has no long-term adverse effects?I usually say that we have no evidence that the drug poses a risk with long-term use; and since the risk of untreated depression is much greater than the hypothetical risk of the drug, it makes sense to stay on it.
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POPSHow Big Pharma pushed a more-expensive, no-more-effective drug
More: Lexapro had $2.3 billion in sales in 2008 even though generic versions of Celexa and every other drug in the class sell for a fraction of Lexapro’s price. For example, a month’s supply of 5-milligram tablets of Lexapro costs $87.99 at drugstore.com, compared to $14.99 for a month’s supply of a generic version of Prozac. Forest has recently been raising the price of Lexapro to make up for a decline in its use… It is impossible to unpack all of the reasons for these prescriptions, but some industry critics say one reason could be the money doctors make from Forest. Psychiatrists make more money from drug makers than any other medical specialty, according to analyses of payment data. And Forest gives more money and food to doctors than many of its far larger rivals… Forest’s payments to doctors in 2008 were surpassed only by those of Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Novartis and Merck — companies with annual sales that are five to 10 times larger than Forest’s.
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POPSIt's All in the Head: Psychotherapy Changes Brain Activity Medication or psychotherapy? Pharmaceutical companies would have us believe that depression and anxiety disorders cannot possibly be lifted if we don't address the underlying neurochemical imbalance with medication. Yet increasing evidence indicate that receiving counseling and therapy brings about similar changes in the brain that are associated with improved mood and functioning. I'm really excited about findings like this. To be sure, I'm not advocating that we do away with medication altogether. Medcation may indeed be necessary to treat psychotic symptoms or severe depression. But I am hopeful this and other studies will get us to think twice before we reach out for that bottle of Adderrall or Concerta for ourselves or our kids.
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POPSEmpty Promises Many effects of antidepressants seem to be due to the placebo effect. And the published trials are only the tip of the iceberg of material that normally doesn't see the light of day. There are also clinical trials that have not been published. These are studies that have failed to show a significant benefit from taking the drug. When all of the data sets are combined " published and unpublished " the inescapable conclusion is that antidepressants may be little more than active placebos, drugs with very little specific therapeutic benefit, but with serious side effects. Not only this, but antidepressants are liberaly prescribed to treat very mild symthoms that rarely stand to the criteria of clinical depression. This does not make the drugs' effectiveness clearer.
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POPSTop 6 Ways to convert Poop into Electricity
Turd Cell Smashers Destroying the cell walls in sludge—by heating it under pressure, zapping it with ultrasonic waves, or pulsing it with electric fields—boosts its methane production by 50 percent or more in anaerobic digesters Geological Toilets Last summer, Los Angeles began injecting sludge into a mile-deep well, where pressure and heat are expected to release enough methane to power 1,000 homes. The well also dissolves and sequesters carbon dioxide that the sludge would normally release, removing the equivalent exhaust of about 1,000 cars per year. Feces Ponds As a cheaper green option, some 50 waste plants in 20 countries have installed versions of UC Berkeley professor William J. Oswald's Advanced Integrated Wastewater Pond Systems Technology--large open-air ponds that primarily rely on anaerobic digestion and photosynthesis to break down sludge and convert it into a fertilizer or animal feed of nitrogen-rich algae. The algae in turn can be used as a feedstock for biofu
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POPSDon't Flush Your Outdate Drugs Down the Toilet! If you were thinking about going to Red Lobster for some lighter fare after that big turkey feast - forget it1 If the lead, mercury, and who knows what else from seafood imported from China doesn't make you sick, you might get high or low on fish out of drug laden US waters.
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POPSWords to Live By In the 60’s people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.
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POPSTake Two Prozac And Call Me In The Morning "So here is what e-mail with my patients has taught me: if you need to reschedule an appointment or need a routine medication refill, please push “send”; if you have something on your mind you want to talk about, please call me — the old-fashioned way. I’m almost wistful for the sound of a ringing phone." *LOL* I luv articles like this one. It reminds me of my husbands cousin who always had to take the "short cut".
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